In 1971 Deirdre Bair was a journalist and recently minted PhD who managed to secure access to Nobel Prize-winning author Samuel Beckett. The next seven years comprised of intimate conversations, intercontinental research, and peculiar cat-and-mouse games. Facing blatant misogyny, she found herself bombarded with harassment from well-established male writers. Her perseverance resulted in Samuel Beckett: A Biography, which went on to win the National Book Award and propel Deirdre to her next subject: Simone de Beauvoir. The catch? De Beauvoir and Beckett despised each other. Her seven-year relationship with the domineering and difficult de Beauvoir required a radical change in approach, yielding another groundbreaking literary profile and influencing Bair's own feminist consciousness.